Previous
Chapter 26
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in America Is in the Heart, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Beauty in Despair
Race and American Identity
Education vs. Ignorance
Poverty
Summary
Analysis
Helen urges the workers to continue their strike, which soon spreads beyond Lompoc. At Helen’s behest, striking workers continue to guard the highways and other exits from the valleys to prevent trucks from bringing produce from the fields. Highway patrol officers, however, guard the trucks, and when the trucks encounter the striking workers, the patrol officers beat the strikers with clubs. When resistance proves futile, the police arrest the strikers and throw them in jail.
Helen exploits the workers’ wish to find allies in the white majority population and abuses the workers’ trust by leading them into a trap. Here, Bulosan makes an explicit connection between the struggle for racial justice and the struggle for economic justice. The American justice system, symbolized by the patrol officers, views Filipinos and organized workers as threats; though one group is a racial group and the other is an economic group, they face linked forms of oppression.
Themes
Carlos travels to Los Angeles, where he meets up with Macario and learns that Amado is in San Francisco working for a white “racketeer lawyer.” Carlos is displeased to learn that Amado and the lawyer have become close, to the point where they “sleep with the same woman.” Amado tells Carlos that he is “going into a new world,” and Carlos believes that Amado has deserted his Filipino roots for good.
This moment represents yet another fall from grace for Amado. After a moment of legitimate enterprise in the form of his restaurant, Amado finds a way to hide his criminal intentions behind the mask of legitimacy by collaborating with a lawyer, who ostensibly represents the justice system. The corrupt lawyer is another example of how symbols of justice in the United States are often deeply unjust themselves.
Themes
Carlos moves in with Macario and Helen returns, planning to make Macario her next victim since she believes him to be a “professional agitator.” Carlos knows that she works for agricultural companies and for so-called “patriotic organizations that considered it their duty to terrify the lives of minorities in the state.”
Here, Bulosan mocks the hypocrisy of so-called “patriotic” organizations that in reality work to constrict the freedoms of non-white residents of America. In so doing, these organizations betray America’s core values of liberty and equality while claiming to honor the nation.
Themes
When José returns and calls out Helen for her treachery, she responds: “I hate the Filipinos as deeply as I hate unions! You are all savages and you have no right to stay in this country!” Carlos angrily strikes her in the mouth before José restrains him. She flees down the nearby ally, and Carlos and José never hear from her again.
Helen’s betrayal of the union workers marks the beginning of a dark period in the second half of Bulosan’s novel. While Carlos is prone to seeing women as symbols of beauty, Helen’s treachery unleashes much despair that once again forces Carlos to reexamine his commitment to finding beauty in the world.
Themes
Get the entire America Is in the Heart LitChart as a printable PDF.
